Posing as I-T officials, they tried to extort a Mumbai businessman. A silly mistake gave them away

On a humid July afternoon, Rajkumar Kandaswami was at his home — a typical, two bed room set up in the Saki Naka neighbourhood of Andheri East.

A businessman in his 50s, he runs a company manufacturing medical equipment. He had returned home from his office only an hour ago. His mobile phone rang; it was one of his employees.

He picked up the call.

“Your office has been raided by the Income Tax (I-T department). Come over quickly to the office or my officials will pick you up,” an unfamiliar voice thundered from the other side.

Kandaswami was a little confused. He rushed to his office and found nine strange faces – six men and three women – there. They informed the businessman that he had been found evading taxes and committing other financial wrongdoings, and would have to pay an amount of over Rs 1 crore to “settle the matter”. They were stern.

Kandaswami was unnerved for a bit. But soon, he regained his composure. He refused to pay. “All my books are clean. I don’t owe any department anything,” he told them.

The raiding team’s tone got sterner. “You will end up behind bars.” Kandaswami didn’t budge. Finally, the ‘raiding party’ left.

For his team of 11 employees, whose mobile phones had been seized by the ‘raiding party’, the trouble, and the long day, seemed to be over. But for Kandaswami, it was not the time to rest easy. How could an I-T team leave without taking any documents?

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He decided to visit the Income Tax office. What he learnt next was something that left him even more shocked. The department had not sent anyone to raid his premises.

Kandaswami wondered: If no one from the I-T department sent any team, who were those nine people who so confidently searched his premises?

He lodged a police complaint. And as the investigation proceeded, little did he imagine that the trigger to the entire set-up lay in a routine action he took as an employer only a month ago.

The disgruntled employee

Kandaswami is the owner of Two-M-Opthotronics Private Limited, a company that manufactures, imports and exports high-tech ophthalmic and OPD equipment, including operation tables and indirect ophthalmoscopes, in the Sahar area of Mumbai. He had a driver, 37-year-old Santosh Kapatkar on his rolls.

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Kapatkar had been working with Kandaswami for six years and had always had his issues. “He was a difficult employee. For a long time, Kandaswami didn’t fire him, thinking it would send out the wrong message,” a police officer said.

But of late, Kapatkar’s behaviour had started getting out of hand.

“He would launch into frequent arguments with Kandaswami, even go to the extent of humiliating him. His behaviour had started to affect the office atmosphere,” the officer said.

In June, Kandaswami asked him to leave. But Kapatkar refused to budge, allegedly using his political contacts to try to get his job back. But Kandaswami was done with him. “I can pay him three to six months’ salary without work but there was no question of hiring him again,” Kandaswami told those who tried to mediate the matter.

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When Kandaswami refused to budge, Kapatkar got angry. “I will teach him a lesson. I will destroy him,” he told other employees and left the premises, fuming.

Kandaswami did not make much of what he believed was an empty threat. But Kapatkar was serious and had already begun his planning.

The making of a plot
In the first week of July, Kapatkar, a resident of Sahar in Andheri East, allegedly walked into the I-T office at the World Trade Centre in South Mumbai. Here, he met Jyotish Sinha, a 42-year-old constable attached to the department.

Kapatkar reportedly told Sinha that he had information about a businessman, who was involved in illegal activities. “You should raid him,” he told Sinha.

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According to the police, Sinha asked Kapatkar whether he wanted a “legal or illegal” raid, claiming that he and his associates conduct both kinds of raids “as per the requirement”.

Police said Kapatkar made it clear that his intention was to teach his former employer a lesson. Sinha understood the assignment.

Sinha then contacted his friend Jitendra More, a Thane resident, who had been involved in impersonation cases in the past.

Police said Sinha instructed Jitendra to contact Sunil Gore, an official and constable attached to the Bandra I-T office, for the proposed “raid”.

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Jitendra More then allegedly contacted Reshma Warang, a Nalasopara resident, and the two subsequently met Sunil Gore – a 59-year-old official due to retire in about six months. According to police, this was the first meeting, where the plan for the fake raid took shape.

A second meeting was allegedly held in the second week of July, during which Income Tax Inspector Suresh Kumar Mishra, 57, was also allegedly involved, police said.

A concrete plan began taking shape.
Next to join was Prem Sabnani, a Pune resident. He was Jitendra’s friend. His job was to impersonate a senior Income Tax officer, the police said. Sabnani was allegedly selected because he looked presentable enough to pass off as a senior IT official.

Then came Ashok Shinde, a Vile Parle resident.

At this point, Kapatkar started looking at his own circle. He requested Vinay More, 38, and Pragya Main, both residents of Andheri, to join him. The trio had known each other for more than a decade and it was not difficult to convince them, the police said.

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Police said the group wanted more women to be part of the team to make the entire operation look credible. Warang then contacted Sabina Sheikh, who lives in Andheri West, and offered her Rs 1,000 to assist them in the operation.

The nine-member team was now ready for the raid.

As Kapatkar was well-versed with the layout of the Kandaswami’s office, he briefed the “team” on what to expect.

On July 17, it was time to strike.

The D-day

Around 4.30 pm, Kandaswami got the call from his office.

According to police, three men arrived at the businessman’s Sahar office in a rented car, while the others came on two motorcycles. As soon as they entered the premises, they switched off the CCTV cameras and told the employees that nobody was allowed to leave. They also collected their mobile phones.

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The office, spread over around 400 square feet, had 11 to 12 employees working in different capacities. Police said the accused behaved like genuine officials to make the operation appear legitimate. One of the alleged Income Tax officials subsequently spoke to Kandaswami over an employee’s phone and asked him to immediately come to the office.

Rattled by the call, Kandaswami informed his wife. She decided to accompany him to the office, situated just 3 kilometres from their residence. They booked a car – the businessman was yet to hire Kapatkar’s replacement.

According to the complaint, two men approached them on a motorcycle. One of them, wearing a pink shirt and black trousers and donning a mask, allegedly showed an identity card claiming to be from the I-T department.

When the car arrived at the office, the two men allegedly took the couple’s mobile phones and forced them to sit in the car. The complainant later realised that the two men were coordinating with another pair, a man and a woman, who followed them from their home to the office on another motorcycle.

At around 5.30 pm, the couple found the group of men and women, the so-called I-T officials, questioning their employees inside their office.

One of the “officials”, a medium-built man in his mid-50s with a thin moustache, wearing a white floral shirt and black pants, showed Kandaswami a document. This was a search warrant, he told the businessman, asking him to sign it. He then questioned Kandaswami about cash transactions and threatened him with a heavy penalty. Another accused, wearing a red shirt, reportedly told an employee that Kandaswami would have to pay Rs 1 crore to avoid action, police said.

Kandaswami, who maintained he had been paying his due taxes and had not committed any wrongdoing, demanded a formal notice. The accused allegedly threatened him with arrest and further action. However, Kandaswami pressed on with his demand of a legal notice, refusing to pay a single penny.

This is when another member of the ‘raiding’ group told Kandaswami that he had withdrawn Rs. 1.70 lakh in cash from a customer’s account in August, and threatened to impose a penalty of Rs. 1.44 crore. But this, too, failed to convince Kandaswami.

Meanwhile, the search continued.

According to police, on the instructions of Kapatkar, who was remotely operating the “raid”, the accused searched cupboards where they allegedly believed cash might be kept.

The search proved fruitless.

Police said Kandaswami and his wife, not to mention the 11 employees, remained confined in the office for several hours during the “operation”.

After failing to find anything incriminating, the group left the premises but not without planting a seed of doubt in Kandaswami’s mind.

Why didn’t the raiding party carry a legal search document? Why did they leave in a huff? Who gave them the false tip-off?

Kandaswami decided to dig deeper.

The next day, along with his chartered accountant, he visited the Income Tax offices in Churchgate and Bandra besides other government offices to verify whether any raid on him had been authorised. He simultaneously approached the Mumbai Crime Branch and the local police.

He was told that no such raid had been ordered by the IT department. Kandaswami submitted a written complaint to the Andheri police in August.

Investigators began their probe.

The “raiding party” had made a crucial mistake.

Even though they switched off the CCTV cameras, they forgot to turn off the digital video recorder (DVR).

“The entire operation was recorded, and the footage subsequently became a key piece of evidence for the Andheri police. It helped investigators identify several people who allegedly participated in the fake raid, including those suspected of having links with the Income Tax Department,” the police officer said.

Said Deputy Commissioner of Police Datta Nalawade, “During the alleged raid, the group demanded Rs 1 crore from Kandaswami. He refused, maintaining that he had not committed any illegal activity and therefore, had no reason to pay the money. Instead, he asked the men posing as officials to issue him a formal notice and said he would approach the Income Tax Department and establish his innocence.”

During the investigation, police started verifying the identities of the people involved in the raid and found that two of them were working at the Income Tax Department.

An FIR was registered on September 4 for alleged impersonation, abduction and extortion.

Then began search for the rest of the suspects: The man in blue and white checkered shirt and black pants, another in one with vertical stripes and a balding head, a woman in yellow salwar-kurti, another in a purple outfit, and the one in light-pink get-up who came to Kandaswami’s residence and followed him to the office.

During the investigation, police arrested 10 accused from Mumbai, Thane and Pune within a week of registering the FIR, between September 4 and September 15.

The arrested accused were identified as Kapatkar, the driver; Vinay Ramesh More, 37; Prem Kisan Sabnani, 50; Pragya Harish Main, 27; Reshma Shamrao Warang, 41; Sabina Hafeez Sheikh, 48; Jitu alias Jitendra Namdev More, 52; Ashok Vithoba Shinde, 57; Suresh Mahavirprasad Mishra, 57, an Income Tax inspector; and Sunil Manohar Gore, 59, an Income Tax official.

Jyotish Sinha, the Income Tax official who allegedly introduced Kapatkar to the group, remains wanted. Police have launched a manhunt for him. He has also reportedly approached the court seeking anticipatory bail. He is believed to be hiding in Jharkhand.

Police have seized mobile phones from the accused and are examining call records, WhatsApp chats, messages and financial transactions to establish the alleged conspiracy and identify other associates. Police are also examining whether the group had targeted other businessmen using a similar modus operandi. The alleged involvement of people connected with the Income Tax Department is being independently verified as part of the investigation.

Not first such case for Sinha

Police said investigation has also revealed that Sinha was allegedly named during the investigation in a similar case registered at the LT Marg police station in 2019. On December 2, that year, seven people, allegedly posing as Income Tax officials, entered the premises of Vijaykumar Angadia Courier Company in Bhuleshwar. They claimed to be conducting an Income Tax raid and allegedly seized documents, cash and the mobile phones of around 17 employees.

The impersonators allegedly assaulted some employees which created panic. They took Rs 15.50 lakh cash from the office, locked the employees inside the premises, and fled. A case was registered and the accused were arrested.

During interrogation, police said, the accused disclosed that Sinha had suggested they pose as officials to carry out the ‘raid’.

Police said Jitendra More also has previous cases registered against him at police stations in Mumbai and Thane, in which he allegedly posed as a GST official.

The Thane case involved a group of eight accused who were arrested for allegedly attempting to extort money from a shopkeeper in August. Three journalists were among those arrested in that case; police had alleged that the group had extorted Rs 25 lakh from the businessman.

Police said Jitendra More and Ashok Shinde were allegedly involved in the case. As Jitendra More and Shinde had already been arrested in that case, the Andheri police obtained their custody through production warrants after their alleged involvement in the fake Income Tax raid emerged. All 10 accused are currently in judicial custody.

The DCP said Kandswami’s clean books played a crucial role in the cover being blown off the entire racket.

“He was very sure that he did not commit any wrongdoing. He had all his papers in place. That gave him the confidence to fend the impersonators off and approach the police.”